The Lighthouse Tavern

Bar Details

Is the Lighthouse Tavern the vaguest bar in Chicago? I'm not even sure it's a bar—it's more like a student lounge in a college dormitory, or a prank (the bathroom was stocked with aftershave bottles and shaving cream cans, all of which were empty), or a foreclosed ground-floor condo (it is, in fact, on the ground floor of an apartment building). The "nautical" "theme" is barely formed: some oars on a wall, a ship's wheel behind the bar, a lighthouse light switch in the men's room, and some toy pirate ships on the window sills. The ceiling fans wobble, like they're busy unscrewing themselves from the ceiling. Hell, the bar is carpeted. So why go to the Lighthouse? Well, because it has a ton of character. Going there makes you wish more bars were as haphazard as this one, which looks like someone brought some nautical gear in a suitcase, opened it up, dumped its contents around randomly, and was too lazy to do anything else to the place. The Lighthouse Tavern is all about the details, even though they all seem accidental. Oh, and Sapporo drafts are four bucks. —Tal Rosenberg